Tag Archives: Partner News

Folks love shopping online as evidenced most recently by the fact that almost $32 billion has been spent online this holiday season (and we still have two shopping days left). LuluLemon, Nordstroms and Sur La Table, I accept thank you notes

With so many eCommerce sites available today, etailers have to find innovative ways to stand out from the crowd and offer truly memorable experiences; experiences that will not only motivate the customer to make the move from “add to cart” to “purchase”, but also keep them coming back for more.

Being that the holiday season is upon us, and that the OpenTok API recently turned one, we wanted to bestow the App of the Week honor on one of our oldest killer partner apps – Meet Me Under the Mistletoe!

Before we jump into the details, let’s acknowledge the fact that most social interactions between couples online lack that loving feeling. Being “poked” by your S.O. or love interest on Facebook is about as romantic as receiving a pair of socks for Valentines Day. Cashmere socks included.

Readers of our four part series on TokShow know all the nitty gritty, behind the scenes details around how the app came to life; from stream transitioning to scalability. Now we’re going to take a look at how the TokShow app has actually been put to good use in the real-world.

R&B sensations Mindless Behavior launched the TokShow app, followed shortly by American Idol winner Lee DeWyze. But the most recent TokShow was hosted by American Idol’s season 10 winner, Scotty McCreery. Since the country crooner hosted the live video chat, his debut album, Clear As Day, has been certified gold and sits in the No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.

The world loves social networking; that’s a fact. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Path or Tumblr, folks are searching for ways to connect. Despite a wide breadth of options, Ken Pomerance and Ron Tannebaum identified a gap in the social network market back in 2008: there wasn’t a place for the recovery community to connect and provide support for one another.

That’s when they decided to launch In The Rooms, a social network dedicated to the global recovery community. Three years later, they’re revolutionizing the online recovery community again by introducing a fully interactive and completely authentic online AA and NA meeting format powered by OpenTok.

The face of fundraising has evolved. While telethons and toy drives are still popular, fundraising efforts have gone digital in recent years with the launch of organizations like Causes, Kickstarter and Crowdrise. SoreBums, a new OpenTok partner, is working to bridge the gap between real-world fundraising and the convenience of online efforts.

Built by NetEngine for The Employment Office, SoreBums is aiming to raise $20,000 for Diabetes Queensland. They’ve setup a stationary bike in their office that is being ridden continuously until their goal is met. Riders are streamed via a live webcam as they complete a 2,000km relay, taking turns at cycling 30-minute legs for 8 hours every weekday for 2 weeks. All of their blood, sweat and tears are captured via live OpenTok video streams.

In the past six months, group listening services have become hot destinations on the web. A common thread runs through all of them: listening with your friends is more fun than listening alone.

Avatars and text chat are the standard form of interaction within these apps. What you might be missing is the live experience of enjoying music with friends: bobbing heads to the beat, busting out dance moves and belting out lyrics.

Meet Rolling.FM. Rolling.FM realized that when you’re listening to music with friends, you should be able to recreate the live experience. Now, in all of their rooftop listening rooms, you can do just that with Rolling.FM’s integration of OpenTok. What Rolling.FM has done really well is incorporate live video in a way that augments the experience, but doesn’t distract from the reason the service exists – to listen to music.

Today we’re launching our newest editorial venture, “App of the Week”. One kick-ass OpenTok powered app will be selected by the TokBox team each week to receive a little extra TLC . We’re excited to launch this effort with our inaugural AOTW, buzzumi!

Buzzumi enables anyone to create customized web-based video rooms for up to six people or webinars with up to 100 people. Signing up for an account is free, but buzzumi also offers their users a way to make money through an incredibly simple PayPal integration.

Today (9/27) at 5:00 p.m. PT, InTheRooms.com is partnering with Drugfree.org and TheFix.com to host the first ever virtual town hall for their You Are Not Alone Campaign. During this virtual town hall, a panel of experts will gather to discuss how addiction impacts different segments of society.

It’s hard to tell when it’s summer in San Francisco, but here at TokBox you know it’s summer when everyone’s a-video chatting. This July, lots of new OpenTok developers decided to dip their toes in the warm, inviting pool of group video chat. (not sure why…) Here are some of our favorite examples:

We’re very excited to welcome Bibbil, the newest app leveraging OpenTok, to the TokBox family. Bibbil enables users to connect face-to-face with friends directly in Facebook; there aren’t any required downloads, installations or programs running outside of the browser. With two simple clicks within Facebook, users are video chatting with selected friends.